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Author
Topic: Candidiasis and hiv! (Read 3081 times)

I'm relatively new to this forum and have more than a few questions but I'll start with the first one first. Hopefully I'll get some informed and educated responses.

Firstly, isn't candidiasis a very common OI for hiv positive people? How come I don't see any mention or barely any mention of it in any of the forum discussion areas? Is that not true that a lot of ppl suffer from it?

Secondly, so let's say you have acute or systemic candidiasis and you test positive, and the doc puts you on ARV's, does he expect you to cure your own candidiasis without any medicines? That's what happened to me, I'm very puzzled that he did not put me on a strong anti-fungal at the same time? Is that normal?

Esp. since the ARV's became so toxic that I got sick from them, and had to stop abruptly. Then for whatever reason it seemed that the fungal infection got much much worse and many years later, I still haven't been able to get rid of it. I have 90 percent symptoms of the illness. Of course, hiv is likely causing the fungal infection but I'm puzzled why they would not treat it with antifungals while they gave me ARVs?

I have a few more questions but I'll keep them for later on this subject. Hope to see some replies.

I was also suffering from candidiasis, and was prescribed a mouth and thoat gargle. This was just before I started taking Atripla. I found the taste of the gargle so foul that I stopped using it within a few days, but when I went back to my doctor last week, the candidiasis had gone, suggesting that the HIV meds had actually done the trick.

Kuttakamina, you should have definitely been treated for thrush (aka candidiasis) if you have thrush. Have you actually been diagnosed with thrush, or are you self-diagnosing? Where is the thrush? (I'm not sure if you're male or female)

If you've been diagnosed with thrush and your doctor has not treated it, I'd be looking for a new doctor as soon as possible. Like YESTERDAY. If you haven't actually been diagnosed by a doctor, you need to tell your doctor about your symptoms and ask for the appropriate treatment.

"...health will finally be seen not as a blessing to be wished for, but as a human right to be fought for." Kofi Annan

Nymphomaniac: a woman as obsessed with sex as an average man. Mignon McLaughlin

HIV is certainly character-building. It's made me see all of the shallow things we cling to, like ego and vanity. Of course, I'd rather have a few more T-cells and a little less character. Randy Shilts

Thrush is not candidiasis, thrush is a very mild form of it, usually found in the mouth. After I quit my hiv meds and went to a DO, non-hiv doctor, she ran some blood tests and diagnosed me with "systemic fungal infection" which means it had spread to most of my body, including the intestines.

If you know how difficult it is to treat it (try reading about it on prohibited website) you will realize that once you have it, it's almost impossible to treat it.

My question is that why they did not do any test for candida (I didn't have growth in my mouth at the time of diagnosis, but had a bad case of it before), nor they treated me for it?

I also never had indication of thrush in my mouth. However, My esophogus was a different story. I had candida in July of 2003. This was discovered after an endoscopy was performed. I thought I was suffering from GERD. It was when they put the scope down my throat , the doctor found it.

Kuttakamina, you need to discuss why you haven't been treated with the doctor who diagnosed you. It sounds like you need a systemic antifungal like Fluconazole, but you really should be discussing this with your doctor.

Ann

PS - that website is not an hiv denialist site. It's just a site that recommends herbal and dietary remedies, but I don't believe they tell people to never use pharmaceutical medications. I've been on that site before and I don't recall ever seeing any hiv denialist content.

~gack~ I just had a look at that website's hiv/aids pages and they do indeed have a denialist slant. I guess I never read any of those pages there before. Either that, or the denialists have gotten a hold of the people who publish that website and got them to change the content since I was last there... ages ago. Sorry, my mistake. I've also blocked the URL.

Kuttakamina, I've edited your post to remove the URL to the website you linked to. We do not allow any links to hiv denialist content on these forums.

If you are wondering what hiv denialists are, they are people who deny that hiv causes aids. They're dangerous people with a dangerous message who have caused countless, needless deaths of hiv positive people. They are also responsible for onward transmissions as they tell people they don't need to use condoms to prevent hiv infection. We do not allow any of their misinformation to be written in these forums or linked to in these forums.

"...health will finally be seen not as a blessing to be wished for, but as a human right to be fought for." Kofi Annan

Nymphomaniac: a woman as obsessed with sex as an average man. Mignon McLaughlin

HIV is certainly character-building. It's made me see all of the shallow things we cling to, like ego and vanity. Of course, I'd rather have a few more T-cells and a little less character. Randy Shilts

I'm relatively new to this forum and have more than a few questions but I'll start with the first one first. Hopefully I'll get some informed and educated responses.

Firstly, isn't candidiasis a very common OI for hiv positive people? How come I don't see any mention or barely any mention of it in any of the forum discussion areas? Is that not true that a lot of ppl suffer from it?

Secondly, so let's say you have acute or systemic candidiasis and you test positive, and the doc puts you on ARV's, does he expect you to cure your own candidiasis without any medicines? That's what happened to me, I'm very puzzled that he did not put me on a strong anti-fungal at the same time? Is that normal?

Esp. since the ARV's became so toxic that I got sick from them, and had to stop abruptly. Then for whatever reason it seemed that the fungal infection got much much worse and many years later, I still haven't been able to get rid of it. I have 90 percent symptoms of the illness. Of course, hiv is likely causing the fungal infection but I'm puzzled why they would not treat it with antifungals while they gave me ARVs?

I have a few more questions but I'll keep them for later on this subject. Hope to see some replies.

I had thrush and it was painful to the point where I could not speak above a whisper and even that for only a couple of minutes. In fact, the pain was so bad that I got prescribed bottles of liquid lidocaine to use as a wash (in addition to those clotrimazole disks that you let dissolve that actually cure the stuff).

But it wasn't killing me; and the pneumonia almost did. So I tend to talk about the pneumonia.

My link was for the candida page of that website, I suppose there's other forums and groups within it, and I had not explored that. In any case, it's ok to remove the links, that was only for reference as to how severe candidiasis problem can be as hundreds and thousands of people post their experiences there.

Assurbanipal, once again I reiterate that thrush is only a small piece of the candidiasis infection. Thrush is easy to treat but candidiasis can be life-threatening, just like pneumonia. I have tried Diflucan a few times but it only seems to help little bit while I'm on it, but once I go off, the problems seems to return.

I'm still surprised that a lot of folks who post here do not mention candidiasis as one of their bigger problems. I'm not on meds at the moment and have not monitored my numbers for some time. It's a choice that I have made and may have paid a price for it too. But the side effects of meds when I did go on them were so severe that I could not bring myself to taking them again.

So, if they put me on ARVs again, should they also put me on some antifungal like diflucan again or they expect the ARVs to treat both? Thoughts?

Have you tried to treat the problem with diet? I've known a couple people (not poz) who (allegedly) had this problem. They did what was called a "stone-age diet" - meaning they cut out all refined foods and sugars and dairy products and basically just ate very plain meat and veg. It helped both of them immensely. They did this under the supervision of an experienced nutritionist (and their doctors) and if you decide to go this route, you should also do it under supervision. While it's a healthy diet, it's not one that modern people are used to and it's best to do it with the guidance of someone who knows what's what to ensure you're getting all the nutrients you need.

Both of these people had a history of heavy antibiotic use - which can mess up your digestive system quite a bit. I'm wondering if you also have a lot of antibiotic use in your history.

I also want to add that I've met a few doctors who don't "believe" in this idea of a wide-spread, systemic candidiasis. My hiv specialist told me (years ago when I brought the subject up) that systemic candidiasis of the type you seem to be referring to is an invention of "new age" type diet fanatics. He said that if there were such a thing as this, its sufferers would also be suffering from oral and esophogeal thrush. My GP agrees with this opinion.

So who knows where the truth lies. While I saw with my own two eyes the improvement in my friends, I tend to trust my doctor's assessment more. After all, just because the diet helped my friends doesn't mean that the diagnosis was correct. (They were both diagnosed by a holistic practitioner - can't remember her full title, but she was also a nutritionist - and they were diagnosed with systemic candidiasis without the benefit of medical tests.) The diet may have been fixing a totally different cause to their problems.

Ann

edited to correct a horrible, glaring misspelling that I just couldn't live with.

Oh, and edited again to add something I just remembered...

One of my friends was able to go back to a more "normal" diet after about eight months, although her diet was much more healthy than it was originally, with fewer refined foods and alcohol. She did not experience any more of the problems that had been attributed to candidiasis.

However, my other friend is on this "stone-age" diet to this day. Any time she goes off the diet for more than a few days, she experiences a return of the some of her symptoms. This leads me to believe that she has some other, undiagnosed problem (such as being lactose or wheat intolerant) and that candidiasis has nothing to do with it. Despite my repeated pleas for her to go to a different doctor and get a new diagnosis, she just sticks to her diet.

"...health will finally be seen not as a blessing to be wished for, but as a human right to be fought for." Kofi Annan

Nymphomaniac: a woman as obsessed with sex as an average man. Mignon McLaughlin

HIV is certainly character-building. It's made me see all of the shallow things we cling to, like ego and vanity. Of course, I'd rather have a few more T-cells and a little less character. Randy Shilts

I think diflucan is very hard on the liver also and cannot be taken long-term.

I always understood, that if necessary, it may be taken for months, as long as the individual is not getting any allergic reactions, and is tolerating well. When I had candida, it resulted in pneumonia :

"How should you take Diflucan?

You can take Diflucan with or without meals.

Take Diflucan exactly as prescribed, and continue taking it for as long as your doctor instructs. You may begin to feel better after the first few days; but it takes weeks or even months of treatment to completely cure certain fungal infections."

Does anyone know if it is possible to get a fungal infection in your sinuses? I've have had problems with my sinuses for years, and antibiotics have been useless. If so could something like Diflucan help? My doc offers no suggestions and the pain and congestion have been going on for years.

Logged

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt."

I don't know about getting fungal infections in your sinuses but wanted to suggest you also scrape your tongue. Thrush (candida) can grow on your tongue and, in my case, I had a scary (but relatively harmless) case of "Black Hairy Tongue" during the same time I had thrush.

Tongue scraping + Diflucan cleared them up. A tongue scraper is great but a spoon can work as well.